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Lyta Alexander
Lyta Alexander was a Human Telepath originally assigned to Babylon 5 as the station's licensed commercial telepath. She was later physically altered by the Vorlons. History Early life Lyta Alexander was born on December 10, 2225 at the Syria Planum colony. A sixth generation Telepath, she was taken in by the Psi Corps and raised on Earth when she was only a few years old. While training she met and became friends with Talia Winters.The Gathering"Babylon 5 Personnel Files 4.0" (Season 4 DVD, Disc 6)Divided Loyalties Early on, she briefly interned with the Psi Cops. After a bad encounter with Alfred Bester she promptly transferred out of the Psi Cop program and took interest in commercial prospects of the Psi Corps. The incident in question involved several Psi Cops tracking down a serial killer who preyed exclusively on telepaths (a killer the regular police did not seem too interested in catching). The Psi Cops used unauthorized and unwarranted scans to find the killer. Rather than arrest him and expose their own activities, the Psi Cops drove the killer insane: he spent the rest of his life confined to a mental institute screaming at visions they put in his head, needing to be forcefully restrained or he would claw his own eyes out. The experience was the first time her absolute loyalty to the Corps was shaken.The Face of the Enemy Between 2247 and 2257, she worked as the commercial telepath for Xenocorp, which involved monitoring corporate negotiations with alien representatives, including Narn, Centauri and pak'ma'ra.Moments of Transition Babylon 5 In 2257, she was assigned as Babylon 5's first commercial telepath. Not long after she arrived, there was an assassination attempt on the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh, and to discover the person who had done this she conducted an unauthorized scan on Kosh. She believed she saw Commander Jeffrey Sinclair as the attempted assassin, but the real culprit was a Minbari Assassin using a changeling net (who at one time appeared as Lyta herself).The Gathering Not long after this she was recalled to be questioned about her experience during the scan. Talia Winters replaced her as Babylon 5's resident telepath.Divided Loyalties Underground After months of being interrogated she escaped Psi Corps custody and began working with the Martian resistance. Lyta Alexander learned of the Psi Corps sleeper program while hiding out with members of the resistance. She found out that one of these sleepers was on Babylon 5, though she was unsure who it may have been. She discovered the password required to unlock this hidden personality and traveled to Babylon 5. Lyta scanned the minds of all the command staff but was unable to discover who it may have been. By chance Talia walked into the room and Lyta scanned her mind, discovering and unlocking the hidden personality, effectively killing the real Talia.Divided Loyalties Vorlon aide thumb|Altered on the Vorlon homeworld. Lyta then traveled to the edge of Vorlon space in an attempt to make it to the Vorlon homeworld. She paid a ship captain to bring her to the edge of Vorlon space and send a signal, but after waiting for an extended period of time without a response, the captain decided to leave. Determined not to give up, she paid the captain the last of her credits for a lifepod where she would continue to wait, sending a telepathic signal into Vorlon space in hopes of a response. After drifting in space for five days, nearly out of supplies and oxygen, she was picked up by the Vorlons and taken to their homeworld. While there she was modified physically and mentally, her regular telepathic abilities enhanced dramatically. She was given gill implants which allowed her to breathe in an alien atmosphere. In 2260 she returned to Babylon 5 and served as an aide to Ambassador Kosh. Part of her duties included "carrying" part or all of Kosh's essence around inside her.Passing Through Gethsemane Lyta was off the station on an assignment from Kosh when he was murdered by the Shadows. She was not carrying a part of him at the time, but was hopeful someone else might have a piece, though her initial search is fruitless. This does not sit well with Kosh's successor, Ulkesh, whom she subsequently assists. Once Captain Sheridan and his crew learned that telepaths could be used to disrupt and slow the Shadow vessels, Lyta was asked to help them prove it. She accompanied Sheridan aboard the White Star and they located a lone Shadow Vessel. At first, the experience was too much for her, but when Sheridan touches her she has a vision of Kosh's death. Enraged over the brutality of Kosh's death, Lyta is able to affect the Shadow ship, keeping it immobile long enough for the White Star to destroy it. After the battle, she begins to suspect Sheridan himself may have part of Kosh within him.Walkabout That theory cannot be properly tested, however, when Sheridan departs for Z'ha'dum and seemingly dies on the planet.Z'ha'dum Afterwards, Ulkesh becomes more secretive. He refuses to come to the council meetings and all but ignores any request by Delenn. She asks him to help her assemble a fleet and go to Z'ha'dum, but Ulkesh flatly refuses. After carrying Ulkesh for a brief time, he gives her leave for a brief while. She goes to Susan Ivanova with a desperate plan to go to Z'ha'dum and try to locate Sheridan. She explains she believes Sheridan was sufficiently touched by Kosh to allow her to find him, and that she has the strength to delay the Shadows long enough. Ivanova and Delenn bring her aboard the White Star and they head for the Shadow's homeworld. Once in orbit, Lyta is nearly overwhelmed, but is able to stall them just long enough for a few scans. They find no trace of Sheridan, however, and head back to the station.The Hour of the Wolf Ulkesh treated Lyta even more harshly: among other things, he made her get rid of everything in her quarters save her mattress as a means to limit apparent distractions. Delenn, suspecting as Lyta does that the Vorlons are now hiding something from them, asks her to try and find out what it is. Lyta is afraid to oblige, saying that while Kosh personally might have cared about the younger races, she is starting to believe the rest of the Vorlons do not. thumb|Lyta sets up Ulkesh. After carrying Ulkesh again, she confronts him with his secrets, but he refuses to answer. Angry, she demands respect from the Vorlon, but he only mocks her. In desperation, she attempts to scan his mind. Ulkesh violently knocks her to the ground, overwhelming her with a flood of painful images of the Vorlons' intentions--they plan to wipe out everyone who has been touched by the Shadows, including entire planets. Ivanova finds Lyta, terrified and in shock, alone in her quarters later, and manages to help her pull herself together. Ivanova lets everyone know (including Sheridan, seemingly back from the dead) that she has evidence of her own confirming Lyta's story.The Summoning She helped drive him from the station with the help of the remaining fragments of Kosh.Falling Toward Apotheosis Telepath crisis She soon found herself without any direction when the Vorlons departed beyond the Rim. She was involved in the Thirdspace incident where hidden elements of her Vorlon transformation took over and helped defeat the aliens from Thirdspace. Despite attempts by Garibaldi to hire her, she did not have the means to continue on her own so she reluctantly had to turn to Alfred Bester for a job in the Psi Corps. Since no legal organization or company could hire her as a listed rogue telepath - and her refusal to perform illicit telepathic scans - her only recourse was to accept a deal offered by Bester. In exchange for her removal off the rogue listing and an apparent membership (if only on the surface) with the Psi Corps, she would agree via a written power of attorney to hand over her bodily remains to the Psi Corps upon her natural death. With no means of legitimate income, she begrudging takes the deal. Moments of Transition She played a role in the final battle of the Earth Alliance Civil War, sending out a signal to the enhanced telepaths smuggled aboard by Martian resistance to interfere with the Clark-loyal ships during the Battle of Mars.Endgame In early 2262, Alexander became romantically involved with Byron, the leader of a colony of rogue telepaths offered sanctuary aboard Babylon 5. She was inspired by him to continue the fight after he committed suicide. She was arrested on Babylon 5 by John Sheridan, but was given a reprieve from Michael Garibaldi to help fund her cause against the Psi Corps as long as she would remove the telepathic block placed in his mind by Bester. During the negotiations with Garibaldi, it was implied by her that her telepathic abilities far outstretched anything ever seen in a human telepath as a possible telepathic "doomsday weapon" if during the events of the last Shadow War had the Vorlons lost. Exploring The Unknown She left Babylon 5 with G'Kar at the end of 2262 to explore the galaxy with each other.Wheel of Fire Six weeks into their travels, the pair found themselves on Durk 3, a tiny commercial space station near the Earth Omega Colony. While there, Lyta had heard rumors about a colony world in Sector 843, settled long ago by telepaths from various worlds and the two departed aboard the Na'Toth for the eight day journey to Sector 843. While en-route, they came across an abandoned Psi Corps mothership, drifting in hyperspace. After boarding the ship they managed to backtrack it's course to an uncharted planet and decide to investigate. After arriving G'Kar and Lyta become separated, though it doesn't take either of them long to discover something in amiss. The planet as it turned out was essentially alive. Every plant, insect and animal telepathically linked in a "Telesymbiosis" with a Hive Mind Bacteria; a powerful telepathic life-form that while not sentient on it's own, facilitated enough neural connections for the entire ecosystem to reach a kind of critical mass and achieve a collective consciousness. After trying to kill them both, Lyta manages to kill the hive mind in a devastating telepathic assault, ensuring that no others would become trapped on the planet.Genius Loci The Telepath War By the end of 2264 Lyta returned to Garibaldi to find he was as good as his word is creating a force to use against Psi Corps. In 2265, during the midst of the Telepath War, Lyta and the Resistance discovered that Psi Cops had recently been able to crack some of Director Vacit's time-locked files on Ganymede and traced his course into Vorlon space. Quickly summoning Garibaldi, Lyta convinced him to sponsor a mission to intercept if not beat Psi Corps to it, believing they intended to uncover the Vorlon secret to enhancing telepathic abilities. In return, Lyta finally freed Garibaldi of his "Asimov" telepathic block. They arrived to find a dead world, littered with the bones of the Vorlon's test subjects, evidently obliterated some time ago. To their surprise they also discover Director Vacit, alive and well despite his advanced years (though most of them negated by his extended near-light speed journey.) The meeting was cut short when Mr. Diamond, a Psi Cop appeared and following a brief confrontation killed Vacit before being gunned down himself. Believing that there was nothing left on the world that either Psi Corps and the resistance could use, Lyta and Garibaldi departed. Unknown to either of them however, the entire incident was a telepathic projection facilitated by the docile yet immensely powerful "Nephilim", under the direction of Vacit. Not only was both Vacit and thousands of the Nephilim still alive but Diamond and his Psi Cops were bent under the will of the Director.The Nautilus Coil Lyta was eventually killed during the last days of the Telepath War and though she never got to see it, the Earth Alliance officially dissolved Psi Corps and took steps to try to re-integrate telepaths into Human society.Final Reckoning - The Fate of BesterThe Well of ForeverThe Legend of the Rangers Family Tree Unnamed Female--+--''Unnamed Male'' | | Desa Alexander----+----Jack O'Hannlon | |_________ | | | (adopted) | Kevin Vacit | (See: Alfred Bester's Family Tree.) | Brenna Alexander--+--''Unnamed Male'' | | Michelle Alexander--+--''Unnamed Male'' | | Natasha Alexander--+--''Unnamed Male'' | | Lyta's Mother--+--''Unnamed Male'' | | Lyta Alexander Notes * The exact circumstances of Lyta's death have yet to be made clear, all that is known is a reference to her having died during the Telepath War in ("Final Reckoning - The Fate of Bester") and an oblique mention in ("The Legend of the Rangers") by G'Kar that she's "gone now." In addition, JMS has confirmed she did not survive the conflict.JMS post on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated - 4/3/2001 8:16:00 AM * Originally, Lyta was to have featured in Lt. Matheson's flashback sequence in ("The Path of Sorrows"), however Patricia Tallman was unavailable to reprise her role due to a prior commitment and so the character Alison was created to take her place.JMS post on CIS - 7/2/1999 3:39:00 PM References Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta Alexander, Lyta